Speaking as Vanguard Medica, the latest biotech entrant to the Stock Exchange, shot to a hefty price premium, Jeremy Curnock info Action Cook of Rothschild Asset Management said Britain was running five to action htm six years htm behind the US. That, htm and Action Henry Cooke Lumsden's info pounds 20m estimate, have now been torn up.A month later, Cameron McColl, Memory's president and chief executive officer, gave an upbeat presentation to UBS clients following a distribution deal with Sumitomo of Japan.. Back in January info the broker UBS tipped the shares action to go Action to pounds 10 by 1998, forecasting profits of pounds 16m this year. The shares were placed with action institutional investors at 160p and rose steadily to peak at pounds 10 in November.Loss-making Memory's warning of possible stock write-downs was its second in a little htm over action htm a month and followed a string of disappointments, action including production delays Action and missed profit targets which have raised doubts in the industry over whether it will ever make any money.The Scottish-based company buys info Action defective chips, repairs them and creates refurbished boards for computer manufacturers.It initially estimated the value of its market at pounds 20bn by the year 2000, but last year posted a nearly-doubled pounds 1.95m loss.The collapse has left many in the City with egg on their faces. It now says some high-margin sales have been deferred to the second half.Slower-than-expected trading in the Middle East and Asia/Pacific and problems with raw material purchasing were also blamed.The run info of bad news has tarnished Telspec's reputation as one of the brightest new issues of 1994. Last month it unveiled 1995 pre-tax profits of pounds 8.7m - pounds 1.5m below market expectations.

Shares in the AIM-listed microchip repairer Memory suffered a similar fate, closing down 37p at 133p yesterday to test an all-time low of 130p, on news that sales of computer memory chips aimed at Apple and the bottom end of personal computer markets had been disappointing. The profit warnings are likely to infuriate investors in both companies.Mr Hackett-Jones raised almost pounds 15m when he sold two million shares at 772p last September, while Memory has had a torrid time since the heavily promoted shares were placed by Manchester broker Henry Cooke Lumsden at 420p last autumn - just before US giant Intel launched a price war in the computer chip market.Prices have since fallen by over 60 per cent to a level some observers feel is permanent.Telspec warned in February that contracts for products worth pounds 6m had been delayed. Societies that remain the focus of speculation have lowered interest on deposits of pounds 2,000 to between 2 to 2.75 per cent.. The dangers of investing in technology stocks were underlined yesterday when two companies in the sector issued profit warnings that sent their share prices into free-fall and left many stockbrokers struggling to hide their embarrassment. The telecommunications equipment maker Telspec crashed 242p to 513p after Frank Hackett-Jones, the chairman, told shareholders that profits in the first half of 1996 would be hit by delayed sales. There have been rumours that Birmingham Midshires might merge with Woolwich Building Society, which itself plans to convert into a bank and float on the stock market next year.Birmingham Midshires is the latest in a long line of societies that have raised the minimum needed to open an account which qualifies for voting membership.Some societies have limited new accounts to local residents, or in the case of National & Counties take more drastic action by closing recently opened accounts and returning the money.Interest rates offered on savings accounts have also been cut in an attempt to discourage the carpetbaggers. During April alone the society took in more than pounds 90m and opened more than 50,000 new accounts.

Since January more than 140,000 savings accounts - four times as many as in the same period last year - have been opened by speculators, also known as "carpetbaggers". The speculators are gambling on a possible move by Birmingham Midshires to merge with another society or convert to a bank, in which case members would get a cash or share bonus. Birmingham Midshires, based in Wolverhampton and Britain's 10th-biggest building society, yesterday doubled the minimum deposit investors need to open a savings account from pounds 500 to pounds 1,000, in an attempt to halt "a stampede of new accounts" that has flooded the society with cash and caused congestion in its 120 branches. "I think it is highly unlikely that we would want to take part," an ITV insider said.However, the commercial TV companies are likely to look at taking space on digital cable, which might be launched by the turn of the decade.Channel 4, which has been talking to both the BBC and the ITV about digital services, has yet to take a decision.. These could form part of a package offered by Sky starting in the autumn of 1997, as part of a digital satellite service compromising as many as 200 channels.Sam Chisholm, chief executive of BSkyB, has said the new digital service would be open to all broadcasters on a "fair and equitable basis." It is expected that the BBC, which yesterday unveiled its own blueprint for the switch to digital, will seek satellite slots for its own proposed digital services.It is understood, however, that the ITV companies are not prepared to join the Sky digital network. Michael Green's Carlton bought cable channel SelecTV earlier this year, while MAI has invested in Rapture, a small cable programmer aimed at the 12-20 age group.Granada has made the biggest investment to date, establishing a joint venture with BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster owned by Rupert Murdoch, to launch up to eight new channels by next year. "We have seen in the past how difficult it has been for ITV companies to co-operate," a senior executive at one franchise said.One problem in the past has been conflicting strategies.